It’s your healthcare system. Don’t you want something better?

The fact that healthcare systems around the world are in trouble is obvious to us all. Experts and clinicians, together with health insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, hospitals payers and all the myriad of stakeholders can all agree there is a problem.

I’d like to think we can even agree on what the big problems are (if we choose to put aside our own self interests), but what we are really struggling with is how we fix it.

The problems seem self evident, but often times the proposed solutions seems overly complex and difficult to execute. Difficult even to get agreement on.

The vast majority of these proposals come from ‘experts’, supported by reams of data and research. Yet the input, opinions and proposals from you and me, (healthcare consumers and patients) seem relegated to mere footnotes.

Yet we are the people the system is designed to support and once one experiences healthcare, on the receiving end, the problems often come into crystal clarity and with that, some alternatives and possible solutions.

What I would like to do is generate a discussion around innovations that can help improve the healthcare system in three dimensions, all at the same time.

The system needs to be sustainable in the long term, we need to improve patient health outcomes and empower consumers to become more engaged with their health. All at the same time.

I would like to hear your experiences, both good and bad with the healthcare system and some of the insights you have gained over the years working or interacting with the system.

Lets see if we can contribute to the debate and ensure the needs of patients and healthcare consumers are heard loud and clear and form the basis for the next generation healthcare system.